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d Lerner Publications Company • Minneapolis

by Jennifer Boothroyd

Photo Acknowledgments

The photographs in this book are used with the permission of: © Rosie Tollemache, Courtesy of the Roald DahlMuseum and Story Centre, cover; © Bremner & Orr Design Consultants Ltd 1998, p. 4; © RDNL, Courtesy ofthe Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, pp. 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16, 17; © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS, pp. 10, 22; © Disney Enterprises, Inc., Courtesy of the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, p. 14; The Gremlinsby Roald Dahl © Disney Enterprises, Inc. Used by permission of Random House, Inc. Image courtesy of the LosAngeles Public Library, 15; © Rex USA, p. 18; © Dave Hogan/Getty Images, p. 20; Kibea Publishing Company,p. 21; © Leonard McCombe/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images, p. 24; © Sanjiro Minamikawa, Courtesy of theRoald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, p. 25; © Jan Baldwin, p. 26.

Text copyright © 2008 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner PublishingGroup, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

Lerner Publications CompanyA division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.241 First Avenue NorthMinneapolis, MN 55401 U.S.A.

Website address: www.lernerbooks.com

Words in bold type are explained in a glossary on page 31.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Boothroyd, Jennifer, 1972–Roald Dahl : a life of imagination / by Jennifer Boothroyd.

p. cm. — (Pull ahead books : biographies)Includes index.ISBN-13: 978–0–8225–8825–2 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)1. Dahl, Roald—Juvenile literature. 2. Authors, English—20th century—Biography—Juvenile

literature. 3. Children’s stories—Authorship—Juvenile literature. I. Title. PR6054.A35Z52 2008823'.914—dc22 [B] 2007019774

Manufactured in the United States of America1 2 3 4 5 6 – JR – 13 12 11 10 09 08

eISBN-13: 978-0-7613-4032-4

Table of Contents

Have You Ever? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Growing Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Becoming a Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

A Children’s Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Roald the Inventor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

A Popular Imagination . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Roald Dahl Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

More about Roald Dahl . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Websites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

4

Kids play inside a giant peach at the Roald Dahl Children’s Gallery in Great Britain.

5

Have You Ever?

Have you ever lived inside a peach?Or flown through the air in a glasselevator? Roald Dahl did these thingsand more inside his head. He used hisimagination to think of exciting ideasfor stories. His imagination helped himbecome a famous author.

6

Three-year-old Roald with his mother, Sofie

7

Growing Up

Roald Dahl was born in Great Britainon September 13, 1916. Roald’smother liked to tell him bedtime stories.The stories were old fairy tales. Roaldwould imagine what the characterslooked like.

When Roald was nine years old, hewent to a boarding school. He didnot like living away from home.

8

Roald lived at Saint Peter’s School.

9

Roald missed his family. He wrote aletter home every week. Writing madehim feel better.

Roald and his three sisters

10

After Roald finished school, he joinedthe Royal Air Force. His country wasat war.

Roald in his Royal Air Force uniform

11

Roald became a pilot. Flying fighterplanes was dangerous. Roald crashedtwice.

Roald flew planes like these in the Royal Air Force.

12

Roald’s plane crash story was in the Saturday Evening Post in 1942.

13

Becoming a Writer

Roald wrote about one of his planecrashes. A magazine printed his story.Roald also wrote a fantasy story. Itwas about little monsters that makeplanes crash.

Walt Disney liked Roald’s monster story.He wanted to make it into a movie.

14

Walt Disney, on the left, with Roald and toy monsters

Walt changed his mind. He turned thestory into a picture book instead.

15

Roald’s monster story was called The Gremlins.

©D

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nter

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es, I

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Roald was always thinking of newstory ideas. He wrote his thoughts ina notebook.

16

A page from Roald’s notebook

Roald built a small hut in his yard. This is where he wrote his stories. He filled the hut with things to help his imagination.

17

Roald’s writing hut

18

Roald with his wife and children in 1970

19

A Children’s Writer

Roald got married and became afather. He used his imagination tomake up stories for his children.Roald decided to make these storiesinto books. The first story became thebook James and the Giant Peach.

For his next book, Roald imagined afantastic candy factory.

20

The factory in Roald’s book made all kinds of sweets.

This book, Charlie and the ChocolateFactory, became very popular.Children all over the world read it.

21

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in Bulgarian

22

Roald and his son, Theo

23

Roald the Inventor

Roald used his imagination for morethan writing stories. He also inventedthings. Roald’s son hurt his head in anaccident. Roald imagined a tool thatcould help heal the injury.

Roald worked with a doctor and afriend to create the tool. It helpedthousands of children get better.

24

Stanley Wade, Roald’s friend, holds the tool they invented.

Roald also invented kites, puzzle games,and garden tools.

25

Roald enjoyed gardening both indoors and outside.

26

Roald works in his writing hut.

27

A Popular Imagination

Roald Dahl died in 1990. He hadwritten more than twenty children’sbooks. Roald’s imagination helped him become one of the most popularauthors in the world.

2828

ROALD DAHL

TIMELINE

1916Roald Dahl is

born onSeptember 13.

1943Roald’s first book, TheGremlins, is published.

1939Roald joins the Royal Air Force.

29

1961James and the GiantPeach is published.

1962Doctors start usingthe Wade-Dahl-Tillvalve, the tool that

Roald helped invent.

1996The Roald Dahl

Children’s Gallery opensin Great Britain.

1990Roald dies onNovember 23.

30

More about Roald Dahl

• Roald’s daughter Olivia became sick and died whenshe was seven years old. Roald dedicated his book The BFG to her.

• One of the schools Roald went to was close to a large candy company. When a new candy wasinvented, the company let the students try it to see if they liked it or not.

• After Roald finished writing Charlie and the ChocolateFactory, he let his nephew, Nicholas, read it. Nicholastold Uncle Roald that it was boring. So Roald rewrotethe story to make it more interesting.

Websites

Roald Dahlhttp://www.roalddahl.com

Roald Dahl Children’s Galleryhttp://www.buckscc.gov.uk/bcc/content/index.jsp?contentid=-1191581755

Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centrehttp://www.roalddahlmuseum.org

Glossary

boarding school: a school where studentslive and go to school

fantasy: make-believe

imagination: ability to think about thingscreatively or in a new way

injury: harm or damage to a body part

pilot: a person who flies an airplane

popular: well liked

31

32

Index

bedtime stories, 7birth, 7, 28

Charlie and theChocolate Factory, 21, 30

death, 27, 29Disney, Walt, 14

flying, 11

Great Britain, 4, 7, 29Gremlins, The, 28

inventions, 23, 24, 25, 29

James and the GiantPeach, 19, 28

Roald Dahl Children’sGallery, 4, 29

Royal Air Force, 11, 28

school, 8, 30

Wade, Stanley, 24Wade-Dahl-Till valve, 23,

24, 29writing, 9, 13, 16, 17

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Do you know . . .

• what Roald did at school every week?

• what story Roald first made up to tell his children?

• what tool Roald helped invent?

Read this book to discover the answers!

Abraham Lincoln

Alexander GrahamBell

The Dalai Lama

Elizabeth Blackwell

Galileo Galilei

George Washington

George WashingtonCarver

Jane Addams

Jane Goodall

Jimmy Carter

Lou Gehrig

Martin Luther King Jr.

Mary McLeodBethune

Mohandas Gandhi

Mother Teresa

Nelson Mandela

Rachel Carson

Roald Dahl

Robert Fulton

Roberto Clemente

Rosa Parks

Susan B. Anthony

Thomas Jefferson

William Penn

PULL AHEAD—BIOGRAPHIES: